Perplexing 16-Year-Old Cosmic Mystery Solved, Revealing Stellar Missing Link
The Blue Ring Nebula, which perplexed scientists for over a decade, appears to be the youngest known example of two stars merged into one. In…
Spitzer Space Telescope
Highly Unusual “Hot Neptune” Exoplanet 260 Light Years Away That “Shouldn’t Exist”
A team led by an astronomer from the University of Kansas has crunched data from NASA’s TESS and Spitzer space telescopes to portray for the…
First Possible “Survivor” Planet Discovered by NASA Next to a Stellar Cinder
The violent events leading up to the death of a star would likely drive away any planets. The newly discovered Jupiter-size object may have arrived…
NASA’s Spitzer Spies a Massive Star Factory – 2 Quadrillion Miles Across
The most massive stars in the universe are born inside cosmic clouds of gas and dust, where they leave behind clues about their lives for…
World Discovered Orbiting a Unique Young Star Provides Astronomers With a One-of-Kind Laboratory
The newly discovered planet’s parent star is still encircled by the disk of material from which both objects formed, giving scientists a glimpse at early…
Dancing Black Hole Collision Unleashes a Flash of Light Brighter Than a Trillion Stars
The recently retired infrared observatory was the only telescope to spot a far-off flash of light that holds clues about the physical characteristics of these…
Final Mosaic by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope “Stars” the California Nebula
The image composite is just one of hundreds that the infrared observatory produced during its 16 years in space. Five days before NASA’s Spitzer Space…
Astronomers Measure Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf for the First Time
Astronomers have used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to make the first measurement of…
NASA Measures Wind Speed on a Brown Dwarf 200 Trillion Miles Away
Not quite planets and not quite stars, brown dwarfs are cosmic in-betweeners. Learning about their atmospheres could help us understand giant planets around other stars….
Parallax Microlensing Free-Floating Stars in the Milky Way’s Bulge
The path of a light beam is bent by the presence of mass, as explained by General Relativity. A massive body can therefore act like…
It’s Lights Out for One of NASA’s Great Observatories – Heartbreaking Goodbye
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope Ends Mission of Astronomical Discovery After more than 16 years studying the universe in infrared light, revealing new wonders in our…
Major Meltdown for Hottest Planet: Even Molecules Are Torn to Shreds
In the scorching atmosphere of exoplanet KELT-9b, even molecules are torn to shreds. Massive gas giants called “hot Jupiters” — planets that orbit too close…
Earth-Size Habitable-Zone World Found by NASA Planet Hunter [Video]
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be…
Astronomers Build Incredible 3D Visualization of Exploded Star Using NASA’s Great Observatories [Video]
Movie Dissects the Nebula’s Intricate Nested Structure In the year 1054 AD, Chinese sky watchers witnessed the sudden appearance of a “new star” in the…
Evolving Mystery of Stellar Evolution Explored in Perseus Molecular Cloud
This image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Perseus Molecular Cloud, a massive collection of gas and dust that stretches over 500 light-years across….
Jack-o-Lantern Nebula Spotted by Spitzer Telescope
A carved-out cloud of gas and dust looks like a celestial jack-o’-lantern in this image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. A massive star — known…
Starry Region Bursting With Bubbles and Bow Shocks Spotted by Spitzer
This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows a cloud of gas and dust full of bubbles, which are inflated by wind and radiation…
Sixteen Incredible Images for Spitzer’s Sweet 16
NASA launched its Spitzer Space Telescope into orbit around the Sun on Aug. 25, 2003. Since then, the observatory has been lifting the veil on…